Thursday, November 13, 2008

Sorry for missing last month’s post. I have been caught up working on my next book, I feel better with a frog in my throat, the final cover for the fantastic Houdini Series by Thomas Lalicki (shown here) and lastly my new history blog ....which I swear you will love even if you hate history.

I do have a really quick Painter tutorial and it’s one that I think everyone can use.

Painter has many hidden tricks that go unused, but one of my favorite is right in the Color Sets palette. Have you ever opened that sketch to be painted and been stuck as to what color palette to use? Well, if you are really lazy (like me) you can steal colors from the masters. For this tutorial, we are going to steal from Caravaggio.

1. If you don’t see the Color Sets palette – select WINDOW/ COLOR PALETTES / COLOR SET. The Color Set looks like a bunch of swatches similar to how Photoshop displays them.

2. Open an image up that you feel has a good range of color or the correct colors.

3. Go to the Color Set , Click on the little arrow to the right, Select “New Color Set from Image”

Painter will now make a color set from that image. That’s it. Paint with Caravaggio’s colors.

This color set might not have every color that you want. You can also add colors to your color set by clicking on the little color swatch add symbol at the bottom (circled in red here)

You can also mix your own colors up in the mixer pad and then again click on the little arrow to the right and select “ New Color Set from Mixer Pad”

Let me know if this is helpful. And if you don’t have Painter, then just download a 30 day-trial to check it out from the banner on the right.